Adjusting Your Content Marketing Strategy for a COVID-19 World

Your previous content marketing strategy is outdated. The unexpected COVID-19 crisis has thrown the world upside down while creating a new normal. The most direct impact is the drastic change in consumer behaviors and consumer expectations, which naturally calls for an updated content marketing strategy.

The Post-Pandemic Consumer Psychology

Priorities changed as our stable life shattered upon the COVID-19 crisis. Consumers are frustrated, concerned, and thus more sensitive than ever. An urgency regarding the environment and human rights, combined with recent social incidents, has driven consumers to seek different online content narratives.

For example, a recent article posted by Neil Patel illustrated how consumer focus has shifted due to the COVID-19. The graphic shows it’s clear that people are focusing more on essential categories, such as personal finance, food, and healthcare. In the meantime, interests in travel, entertainment, and B2B niches all showed an apparent decrease.

Surviving Covid-19 with Content Marketing

When face-to-face interactions dropped to a historic low, content, especially online content, is all you have to reach and stay connected to your audience. However, appropriate content marketing can do more than help your brand survive. It will be the fuel that brings you forward in this challenging time.

Getting on the Consumers’ Level

The first thing a business needs to do is to get on the consumers’ level. Try to understand what your audience is genuinely concerned about: is it your service or pricing? Accessibility and deliverability? Or the value behind your company?

There are plenty of businesses already adapting to COVID-19. We have distilleries who are now making hand sanitizer, clothing companies sewing face masks, and museums offering virtual tours.

To grow with content marketing in this unusual time, it is vital to respond to consumer needs. If something was lost due to the pandemic, recreate that experience through creative content marketing.

Balancing Optimism and Sensitivity

There’s nothing wrong with being optimistic during harsh times, but be careful not to fall into the toxic positivity realm. Denialism and escapism are typical results from forcing your content marketing strategy to focus only on the positive during difficult times.

Therefore, it is important to acknowledge emotions, sentiments, and even struggles in your content marketing strategy. Connect with your audience on a human level. Tell them that you are with them, and you understand what they are going through.

Be a part of the struggle and then thrive beyond it, together.

Update KPIs for Accurate Analytics

When the marketing environment shifts, so do KPIs and analytics. If you’ve been chasing quantitative data, now is an excellent time to shift towards qualitative ones. 

According to Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of marketing at HubSpot, focusing on qualitative data has allowed the company to gain deeper insights on content acceptance and thus helped them to make rapid adjustments on subsequent social media content.

Adapting a content scoring system focusing on relevancy and engagement is a great way to start optimizing your content marketing ROI analytics. In the meantime, many industries, such as the manufacturing industry, are actively building thought leadership that puts a heavier emphasis on content marketing.

With Change, Comes Opportunity

Every story has two sides. With challenges, there always come opportunities. Therefore, now is the perfect time to establish a partnership with a content marketing agency.

While we are social distancing physically, don’t social distance your brand from an audience that’s more active digitally than ever. Utilize the latest technologies to stay visible and engaging with your target audience and put additional effort into SEO as people are continually searching for new information.

The world will never be 100% the same after COVID-19. Therefore, your content marketing strategy must adjust to the new normal for you to survive and thrive.